Dear Yuletide 2024
Oct. 12th, 2024 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raspberryhunterDear Yuletide Writer,
My Yuletide Tradition is to write Way Too Many Words in my letter. Feel free to ignore these ideas and use your own — I love seeing how other people think about my favorite fandoms, and I love seeing interpretations that are different from mine (some of my favorite fics are the ones that made me look at things in a new way). Also, please don't read anything into the amount of stuff I have written for each fandom, which has more to do with how much free time I had when I wrote the various sections than anything else; I would be extremely pleased to receive anything for any of these, otherwise I would not have requested them. :D
I am happy to receive treats!
General: I am open to most things! I am a fan of gen, but I'm totally open to het/slash/femslash. I very much welcome alternative ways of telling stories -- IF, epistolary fic, text messages/tweets, poetry, comments on log files, what-have-you, yes please!! I'm also fine with crossovers. Darkfic/character death is great and even encouraged for at least some of these fandoms (though please tag and check the fandom-specific DNWs). I absolutely love fork-in-the-road type AUs for any fandom. For setting-changed AUs, I would adore them for the RPF categories, but not for the others. Basically I'm okay with most things as long as you tag for it so I know what I'm getting into!
Things I love: (I don't expect all of these by any means, this is just a sampling of Things That Make Me Happy): I love worldbuilding fic and plotty fic. I love character-driven fic that thinks hard about the ramifications of characters' choices. I love most of all for there to be some sort of character arc, or characters (and/or the reader) coming to a greater understanding of something or someone during a fic. I love and adore deep friendship/partnerships, especially platonic ones, of all gender-variety. I love loyalty and duty bonds (and I have a special place in my heart for physical expressions of fealty bonds, like kneeling or ritualized oath-swearing). I love it when all the characters are understandable rather than straight-out villainous or malicious, or where expectations of malice are subverted. I love when something or some implication is clear to the reader that is not clear to the characters, or some subset of the characters, because we have knowledge (about the actual canon, for example) that they don't have.
DNW: Please no references to current politics or current events (canon-related politics are great), and please no PWP. For tragic/dark endings: Please check the canon-specific DNWs, as for some of my requested fandoms/characters I don't want them to have an unhappy ending, or an ending with no hope. But if I don't have a canon-specific DNW about it, then tragedy/death/whatever is fine -- and encouraged! -- if tagged.
Some Desperate Glory (Lin, Avi): I would really like fic about Yingli Lin and her relationship with Avicenna.
There's so much there. She's Avi's mentor, and my headcanon is that she finds him super annoying a lot of the time but also genuinely sometimes enjoys being with him because she enjoys working with his intelligence, complicated by knowing in the back of her head that if he had grown up anywhere but Gaea, he'd have a much better life with much better options. What Avi thinks about Lin is equally as or perhaps more fascinating -- he knows she's really good at what she does (when no one else seems to), but he doesn't know exactly how good she is, nor how much he has left to learn. And I think that he legitimately cares for her, but doesn't really know how to articulate that either to her or to himself, and mostly just takes her for granted, in the way of teenagers.
-I wrote a story where Avi got upset with Lin because he realized she told Jole he knew too much, but that was for thematic reasons and I bet that wouldn't actually be his primary reaction (heck, he probably assumes that everyone just knows he knows everything, or thinks he does, lol). I think the really interesting thread here that I would love to see is, what would Avi think about Lin sacrificing herself for all of them? Does this mean he has to change the way he views her, how he views the world? How does he come to terms with realizing he's underestimated her in a couple of different kinds of ways? Does he have to work through that he might actually care what happens to her, when he's been telling himself that he doesn't care about anyone?hamsterwoman said, "I could see him being almost angry about it? Like, I was expecting YOU of all people to make sense!" and that just seems so spot on to me and I would love to see how that plays out! I'd love fic in general about how they relate afterwards.
-hamsterwoman said in her prompts, "I feel like you could have some fun with epistolary fic for the two of them, with comments in code, security logs, etc." and yes I want this! (I mean, feel free to write this for hamsterwoman instead of me! If you do, I promise to read it and treat it as if it were also a present for me, because it would so be.)
-I mean, all the discussion in the comments of this post is amazing and I want all of it.
Fandom-specific DNW: I don't want easy endings or hopeless endings. Endings where the characters have to fight to grow or change, and with struggle come to a better place, great! Or endings where the characters could go either way but we hope they'll choose the right way. But not something where rocks fall everyone dies, or where everyone is awful, or where everyone is magically happy without putting the work in. Character death is fine for this canon.
Translation State (Teacher): Okay. So I finished this book needing fic about Teacher. Teacher tries their best to tell their charge what they need to know and not to lie, and even fights off-screen for their charges to have access to more information than the other Translators and clades are willing to provide, and I just have so many questions!
-Teacher's past: Teacher says that the only chance most injured Edges have is if an Adult notices and takes pity, and that's how they ended up with this "shit assignment" -- was Teacher the injured Edge, or was Teacher the Adult who noticed? In general, what was Teacher's life like before the events of Translation State? How did Teacher survive and get to the point where they clearly have enough status to fight with others, including the high-status Translator Dlar? How is that consistent with Teacher having "shit assignment"s -- or does Teacher not mind them as much as Qven would? Or is it that Teacher could have been far more powerful but keeps using their political clout to fight for the Edges?
-Teacher's future: When Qven needs someone who will tell e the truth... it's Teacher that e turns to. Teacher even fights with Translator Dlar about it. And then... who knows. Teacher is never mentioned again. I imagine that Teacher has managed to survive this far and will probably continue to survive, but it's probably not... great for their clade status, or whatever? What happens to Teacher?? Many bonus points if Qven/Reet are able to acknowledge that Teacher did what they did at risk to themselves and that even though Qven rightfully wants to leave all that behind, e does owe a little to Teacher.
I love reading about aliens and alien culture that is hard to wrap a human brain around but makes sense to the aliens, and any of that would be wonderful -- though I would prefer if the culture was not just one-note "this sucks" as I often felt from the book.
Fandom-specific DNWs: None. Please tag for character death or unhappy endings, but those are still fine.
18th Century CE Frederician RPF (Fritz, Heinrich, Voltaire): This is a request where you don't need to use all 3, but use as many as you can shoehorn in ;)
I got pulled into this fandom a while back and have been finding myself totally enthralled by the relationships between this set of characters. I am fascinated by Fritz' brother Heinrich, who had an extremely dysfunctional love/hate relationship with his brother (where Fritz treated him in a way that was strongly reminiscent of the way that his father treated him, and Heinrich alternately fought against it and knuckled down to it).
And then there's Voltaire, who is just awesome in the way that he Could Not Let Things Go (which had both good and bad consequences), and his hateship-can't-live-with-him-can't-live-without-him with Fritz is just hilarious :D
Some thoughts/prompts, but don't feel restricted to these:
-Voltaire has to rescue Frederick the Great from being taken captive (by Maria Theresia??) by the power of his pen, which Fritz is NOT happy about! (About being beholden to Voltaire, that is, who is obviously neeeeever going to let Fritz live this down.) Meanwhile, Heinrich is regent...
-This fandom in SPAAAAACE, can you imagine the space battles between Maria Theresia and Fritz, and Heinrich as a SPAAAACE general :D (SPAAACE Abbess Amalie, y/y??) Or really any AU! Time-traveling? Corporate? Magic with dragons? Magic AU European history in Scholomance world?? Yes please!
-Anything with Heinrich and Catherine the Great/Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst being BFFs, I think it is hilarious and awesome that this is canon. Really, anything, but I would particularly love the AU where Heinrich has to marry Sophie and this devolves into them double-crossing and back-stabbing each other, as long as they were able to remain friends and enjoying each other's company even while plotting against each other :D
-Fritz Freaky-Friday bodyswitch! Fritz/Heinrich? Fritz/someone else, like Fritz/Mme Pompadour?? Can you imagine how Voltaire would react?! assuming he didn't die of laughter? Would it be great for Fritz to have to depend on Émilie Du Châtelet, of all people, to be the architect of figuring out how to get them to switch back, y/y? :D
Fandom-specific DNWs: none.
Nethack (Any): (I nominated vanilla Nethack, though I'm also familiar with Slash'EM and would be fine with that as well.) Nethack is a bit of an obsession with me, even though I'm not particularly good at it -- I've ascended maybe once when I was super lucky and found an early wish? I usually die on, like, dungeon level 6 or so. But I've read all the spoilers :D
-What I would love is something that really engages with how weird this game is. What does it mean that one's world is reduced to ascii characters or low-resolution tiles? What meaning do we ascribe to the futility of pushing boulders back and forth until we make a mistake and then have to take the hit to luck that we could just have taken in the beginning? Is the RNG malevolent? (Yes.) Do you have ~feelings~ about the changes made to 3.6 and 3.7? Do you feel lucky? Do you want your possessions identified? Again? :) The game itself has a wry sense of humor, and anything that engages with that would be awesome!
-Please feel free to get creative with format. It seems like this could be the perfect context for an interactive fic? But anything goes! A story of an obsessed Nethack player told through found documents? A player character that is writing scrolls? Maybe the DYWYPI is a time loop?? How do you break out of it??
-I nominated "Worldbuilding" but then didn't request it because I wanted to give you full choice, and many of my prompts are not necessarily straight "worldbuilding" prompts. But worldbuilding would be really interesting! So what is really going on with the Amulet of Yendor and the Wizard of Yendor? Why is the amulet named after the wizard, anyway? What is even the deal with Moloch, who seems pretty hands-off as a god? How/why does the wizard keep coming back after you kill him (is that part of his deal with Moloch, or what)? What happens to your god after you offer the amulet to them? Is this going to kick off a big war in heaven or something as your god dukes it out with Marduk-the-Creator? Or will Moloch now steal it from your god, kicking off the next spate of adventures? What about artifacts in general?? Why are there random sokoban levels?? Whose castle is the Castle level, why does this person have a wand of wishing, and is it relevant that the level is between Medusa and the Valley of the Dead? Also, how does the biology of the Mazes of Menace work? How are there trees on random levels like Minetown? How is there a random castle? And the economics! How do the shopkeepers make any money off just, er, dungeon tourists, and what do they spend it on??
Fandom-specific DNW: I do not want a fic that has any more sexual content than the game itself. That is, it's a given that sex can happen in Nethack, but I don't want any more details than those given in the messages :) I also don't want a straight fic of a play-through (I can go look at the subreddit if I want that) unless you're also doing something else interesting with it (like, a story where a player character started playing like a normal game but gradually uncovered the secrets of Moloch instead of getting the Amulet would be interesting). Pixel-death in-game is fine, but please tag as character death; I do not want death outside of the game (if you're breaking the fourth wall or something). Please also tag if the story is explicitly downbeat (though I am fine with that).
Scholomance (Li Shanfeng, Olivia Rhys-Lake; spoilers): I love these books, and I love El's shining determination to do the right thing -- but also it was Li Shanfeng and Olivia Rhys-Lake who captured my attention in Golden Enclaves, because they were the ones who did the horrible realpolitik calculations. They were the ones who, with their eyes wide open, did terrible, awful things -- for what they thought was the greater good. For what even might have been the greater good. It gets glossed over a bit, but it's clearly a thing that El was able not to have to make hard unethical decisions because Ophelia and Shanfeng (and Deepthi!) did. I want more about how complicated it all was for them! And what does it look like for Li Shanfeng and Olivia Rhys-Lake as they live through the years before El and Orion have grown up? Everyone knows about Orion, of course, and I imagine that there are all kinds of delicate political games that get played between their enclaves and themselves. Or, for another prompt:sprocket said to me, what about the AU where Li Shanfeng applies his energies to breaking the enclave-building secrecy spells instead of making forty new maw-mouths?? What is he able to do with that? What kind of world does that look like? How does Rhys-Lake react? Or: how do the two of them interact and do their political dance after the events of the trilogy, and how does El's power play into that?
Fandom-specific DNW: I do not want Li Shanfeng and Ophelia Rhys-Lake to be romantically involved. They can be attracted, but there shouldn't be anything explicitly physical between them.
My Yuletide Tradition is to write Way Too Many Words in my letter. Feel free to ignore these ideas and use your own — I love seeing how other people think about my favorite fandoms, and I love seeing interpretations that are different from mine (some of my favorite fics are the ones that made me look at things in a new way). Also, please don't read anything into the amount of stuff I have written for each fandom, which has more to do with how much free time I had when I wrote the various sections than anything else; I would be extremely pleased to receive anything for any of these, otherwise I would not have requested them. :D
I am happy to receive treats!
General: I am open to most things! I am a fan of gen, but I'm totally open to het/slash/femslash. I very much welcome alternative ways of telling stories -- IF, epistolary fic, text messages/tweets, poetry, comments on log files, what-have-you, yes please!! I'm also fine with crossovers. Darkfic/character death is great and even encouraged for at least some of these fandoms (though please tag and check the fandom-specific DNWs). I absolutely love fork-in-the-road type AUs for any fandom. For setting-changed AUs, I would adore them for the RPF categories, but not for the others. Basically I'm okay with most things as long as you tag for it so I know what I'm getting into!
Things I love: (I don't expect all of these by any means, this is just a sampling of Things That Make Me Happy): I love worldbuilding fic and plotty fic. I love character-driven fic that thinks hard about the ramifications of characters' choices. I love most of all for there to be some sort of character arc, or characters (and/or the reader) coming to a greater understanding of something or someone during a fic. I love and adore deep friendship/partnerships, especially platonic ones, of all gender-variety. I love loyalty and duty bonds (and I have a special place in my heart for physical expressions of fealty bonds, like kneeling or ritualized oath-swearing). I love it when all the characters are understandable rather than straight-out villainous or malicious, or where expectations of malice are subverted. I love when something or some implication is clear to the reader that is not clear to the characters, or some subset of the characters, because we have knowledge (about the actual canon, for example) that they don't have.
DNW: Please no references to current politics or current events (canon-related politics are great), and please no PWP. For tragic/dark endings: Please check the canon-specific DNWs, as for some of my requested fandoms/characters I don't want them to have an unhappy ending, or an ending with no hope. But if I don't have a canon-specific DNW about it, then tragedy/death/whatever is fine -- and encouraged! -- if tagged.
Some Desperate Glory (Lin, Avi): I would really like fic about Yingli Lin and her relationship with Avicenna.
There's so much there. She's Avi's mentor, and my headcanon is that she finds him super annoying a lot of the time but also genuinely sometimes enjoys being with him because she enjoys working with his intelligence, complicated by knowing in the back of her head that if he had grown up anywhere but Gaea, he'd have a much better life with much better options. What Avi thinks about Lin is equally as or perhaps more fascinating -- he knows she's really good at what she does (when no one else seems to), but he doesn't know exactly how good she is, nor how much he has left to learn. And I think that he legitimately cares for her, but doesn't really know how to articulate that either to her or to himself, and mostly just takes her for granted, in the way of teenagers.
-I wrote a story where Avi got upset with Lin because he realized she told Jole he knew too much, but that was for thematic reasons and I bet that wouldn't actually be his primary reaction (heck, he probably assumes that everyone just knows he knows everything, or thinks he does, lol). I think the really interesting thread here that I would love to see is, what would Avi think about Lin sacrificing herself for all of them? Does this mean he has to change the way he views her, how he views the world? How does he come to terms with realizing he's underestimated her in a couple of different kinds of ways? Does he have to work through that he might actually care what happens to her, when he's been telling himself that he doesn't care about anyone?
hamsterwoman said, "I could see him being almost angry about it? Like, I was expecting YOU of all people to make sense!" and that just seems so spot on to me and I would love to see how that plays out! I'd love fic in general about how they relate afterwards.-
hamsterwoman said in her prompts, "I feel like you could have some fun with epistolary fic for the two of them, with comments in code, security logs, etc." and yes I want this! (I mean, feel free to write this for hamsterwoman instead of me! If you do, I promise to read it and treat it as if it were also a present for me, because it would so be.)-I mean, all the discussion in the comments of this post is amazing and I want all of it.
Fandom-specific DNW: I don't want easy endings or hopeless endings. Endings where the characters have to fight to grow or change, and with struggle come to a better place, great! Or endings where the characters could go either way but we hope they'll choose the right way. But not something where rocks fall everyone dies, or where everyone is awful, or where everyone is magically happy without putting the work in. Character death is fine for this canon.
Translation State (Teacher): Okay. So I finished this book needing fic about Teacher. Teacher tries their best to tell their charge what they need to know and not to lie, and even fights off-screen for their charges to have access to more information than the other Translators and clades are willing to provide, and I just have so many questions!
-Teacher's past: Teacher says that the only chance most injured Edges have is if an Adult notices and takes pity, and that's how they ended up with this "shit assignment" -- was Teacher the injured Edge, or was Teacher the Adult who noticed? In general, what was Teacher's life like before the events of Translation State? How did Teacher survive and get to the point where they clearly have enough status to fight with others, including the high-status Translator Dlar? How is that consistent with Teacher having "shit assignment"s -- or does Teacher not mind them as much as Qven would? Or is it that Teacher could have been far more powerful but keeps using their political clout to fight for the Edges?
-Teacher's future: When Qven needs someone who will tell e the truth... it's Teacher that e turns to. Teacher even fights with Translator Dlar about it. And then... who knows. Teacher is never mentioned again. I imagine that Teacher has managed to survive this far and will probably continue to survive, but it's probably not... great for their clade status, or whatever? What happens to Teacher?? Many bonus points if Qven/Reet are able to acknowledge that Teacher did what they did at risk to themselves and that even though Qven rightfully wants to leave all that behind, e does owe a little to Teacher.
I love reading about aliens and alien culture that is hard to wrap a human brain around but makes sense to the aliens, and any of that would be wonderful -- though I would prefer if the culture was not just one-note "this sucks" as I often felt from the book.
Fandom-specific DNWs: None. Please tag for character death or unhappy endings, but those are still fine.
18th Century CE Frederician RPF (Fritz, Heinrich, Voltaire): This is a request where you don't need to use all 3, but use as many as you can shoehorn in ;)
I got pulled into this fandom a while back and have been finding myself totally enthralled by the relationships between this set of characters. I am fascinated by Fritz' brother Heinrich, who had an extremely dysfunctional love/hate relationship with his brother (where Fritz treated him in a way that was strongly reminiscent of the way that his father treated him, and Heinrich alternately fought against it and knuckled down to it).
And then there's Voltaire, who is just awesome in the way that he Could Not Let Things Go (which had both good and bad consequences), and his hateship-can't-live-with-him-can't-live-without-him with Fritz is just hilarious :D
Some thoughts/prompts, but don't feel restricted to these:
-Voltaire has to rescue Frederick the Great from being taken captive (by Maria Theresia??) by the power of his pen, which Fritz is NOT happy about! (About being beholden to Voltaire, that is, who is obviously neeeeever going to let Fritz live this down.) Meanwhile, Heinrich is regent...
-This fandom in SPAAAAACE, can you imagine the space battles between Maria Theresia and Fritz, and Heinrich as a SPAAAACE general :D (SPAAACE Abbess Amalie, y/y??) Or really any AU! Time-traveling? Corporate? Magic with dragons? Magic AU European history in Scholomance world?? Yes please!
-Anything with Heinrich and Catherine the Great/Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst being BFFs, I think it is hilarious and awesome that this is canon. Really, anything, but I would particularly love the AU where Heinrich has to marry Sophie and this devolves into them double-crossing and back-stabbing each other, as long as they were able to remain friends and enjoying each other's company even while plotting against each other :D
-Fritz Freaky-Friday bodyswitch! Fritz/Heinrich? Fritz/someone else, like Fritz/Mme Pompadour?? Can you imagine how Voltaire would react?! assuming he didn't die of laughter? Would it be great for Fritz to have to depend on Émilie Du Châtelet, of all people, to be the architect of figuring out how to get them to switch back, y/y? :D
Fandom-specific DNWs: none.
Nethack (Any): (I nominated vanilla Nethack, though I'm also familiar with Slash'EM and would be fine with that as well.) Nethack is a bit of an obsession with me, even though I'm not particularly good at it -- I've ascended maybe once when I was super lucky and found an early wish? I usually die on, like, dungeon level 6 or so. But I've read all the spoilers :D
-What I would love is something that really engages with how weird this game is. What does it mean that one's world is reduced to ascii characters or low-resolution tiles? What meaning do we ascribe to the futility of pushing boulders back and forth until we make a mistake and then have to take the hit to luck that we could just have taken in the beginning? Is the RNG malevolent? (Yes.) Do you have ~feelings~ about the changes made to 3.6 and 3.7? Do you feel lucky? Do you want your possessions identified? Again? :) The game itself has a wry sense of humor, and anything that engages with that would be awesome!
-Please feel free to get creative with format. It seems like this could be the perfect context for an interactive fic? But anything goes! A story of an obsessed Nethack player told through found documents? A player character that is writing scrolls? Maybe the DYWYPI is a time loop?? How do you break out of it??
-I nominated "Worldbuilding" but then didn't request it because I wanted to give you full choice, and many of my prompts are not necessarily straight "worldbuilding" prompts. But worldbuilding would be really interesting! So what is really going on with the Amulet of Yendor and the Wizard of Yendor? Why is the amulet named after the wizard, anyway? What is even the deal with Moloch, who seems pretty hands-off as a god? How/why does the wizard keep coming back after you kill him (is that part of his deal with Moloch, or what)? What happens to your god after you offer the amulet to them? Is this going to kick off a big war in heaven or something as your god dukes it out with Marduk-the-Creator? Or will Moloch now steal it from your god, kicking off the next spate of adventures? What about artifacts in general?? Why are there random sokoban levels?? Whose castle is the Castle level, why does this person have a wand of wishing, and is it relevant that the level is between Medusa and the Valley of the Dead? Also, how does the biology of the Mazes of Menace work? How are there trees on random levels like Minetown? How is there a random castle? And the economics! How do the shopkeepers make any money off just, er, dungeon tourists, and what do they spend it on??
Fandom-specific DNW: I do not want a fic that has any more sexual content than the game itself. That is, it's a given that sex can happen in Nethack, but I don't want any more details than those given in the messages :) I also don't want a straight fic of a play-through (I can go look at the subreddit if I want that) unless you're also doing something else interesting with it (like, a story where a player character started playing like a normal game but gradually uncovered the secrets of Moloch instead of getting the Amulet would be interesting). Pixel-death in-game is fine, but please tag as character death; I do not want death outside of the game (if you're breaking the fourth wall or something). Please also tag if the story is explicitly downbeat (though I am fine with that).
Scholomance (Li Shanfeng, Olivia Rhys-Lake; spoilers): I love these books, and I love El's shining determination to do the right thing -- but also it was Li Shanfeng and Olivia Rhys-Lake who captured my attention in Golden Enclaves, because they were the ones who did the horrible realpolitik calculations. They were the ones who, with their eyes wide open, did terrible, awful things -- for what they thought was the greater good. For what even might have been the greater good. It gets glossed over a bit, but it's clearly a thing that El was able not to have to make hard unethical decisions because Ophelia and Shanfeng (and Deepthi!) did. I want more about how complicated it all was for them! And what does it look like for Li Shanfeng and Olivia Rhys-Lake as they live through the years before El and Orion have grown up? Everyone knows about Orion, of course, and I imagine that there are all kinds of delicate political games that get played between their enclaves and themselves. Or, for another prompt:
sprocket said to me, what about the AU where Li Shanfeng applies his energies to breaking the enclave-building secrecy spells instead of making forty new maw-mouths?? What is he able to do with that? What kind of world does that look like? How does Rhys-Lake react? Or: how do the two of them interact and do their political dance after the events of the trilogy, and how does El's power play into that?Fandom-specific DNW: I do not want Li Shanfeng and Ophelia Rhys-Lake to be romantically involved. They can be attracted, but there shouldn't be anything explicitly physical between them.
